Let Me Paint You A Picture
by theywillneverknow
Summary: This is a really quick, really short one-shot about Lois calling out her two best friends on all the stuff they’ve been doing recently.


Title: Let Me Paint You A Picture.

Author: Firstflier.

Characters: Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Chloe Sullivan (Olsen?).

Rating: PG-13.

Spoilers: Very, very mild spoilers for 8x16 'Turbulence'.

Short summary: This is a really quick, really short one-shot about Lois calling out her two best friends on all the stuff they've been doing recently. I think this is more me having a vent than an actual story!! =D Lois is probably a bit more harsh than she ever would be on SV but I wanted to give Lo the opportunity to explode because I don't think she'll get the chance onscreen.

Let Me Paint You A Picture

Let me paint you a picture.

Lois Lane sat at her desk, angrily punching her keyboard like it's done something to personally offend her.

Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent chatting at the desk opposite her.

This scene, perhaps, does not seem unfamiliar and yet the conversation that followed this relatively simple portrait stunned the news room into awkward silence. If one was watching Lois Lane's face very carefully, the hues it turned were remarkable, disturbingly beautiful somehow in their angry purple marring of her pretty features. Her eyes were ablaze as she stared, unseeingly at her computer screen, and she seemed to be typing incoherent nonsense simply as an excuse to hit something as hard as she possibly could to feel some kind of vindictive satisfaction. This response was, perhaps, less surprising if one had had to suffer the same conversation as she had for the past 15 minutes. Let me elaborate for you.

Chloe had only entered to throw fuel on the fire of Lois' rage about 20 minutes ago and had perched on the edge of Clark's desk with a withering sigh after a brief smile thrown in Lois' direction. Her raven haired friend had glanced up from his computer and, taking in her downcast expression, had turned completely in his chair to face her.

"Chloe? What's wrong?" His brow furrowed as his eyes ran worriedly over his distressed blonde friend.

"Jimmy and I just had a fight." Another forlorn sigh escaped her mouth and the sparkle in her eyes seemed less prominent than usual.

"Oh? About what?" Clark sounded genuinely confused by this, which, in itself, was laughable. Most of the news room could have guessed what the fight was about. The answer, as expected, was unsurprising.

"He snapped at me for spending too much time with Davis." There was a scoff from Lois' side of the desk which she swiftly turned into a cough, but she soon realised neither party privy to the conversation had paid attention to her indiscretion and she carried on with her nonsensical typing, avidly listening to the conversation being played out before her as if she didn't exist. "I don't know, he seems really on edge recently I don't know what to do."

"Have you tried talking to him about it? Maybe it's the medication he's on from the hospital?" Clark's pitiful explanation caused Lois to stare at him like he had a third head, disbelief etched across her face.

"No. I don't want to make things worse, you know? I just...I feel like it's something I've done."

"Don't say that Chloe." Clark said firmly, taking his friend's hand and squeezing it tenderly. "I'm sure it's nothing to do with you. It's probably something really silly. Don't worry so much about it." It was here that Lois' face began to take on a magenta shading as she ground her teeth together.

Chloe gave a self-deprecating half smile and lifted a shoulder in an attempt at nonchalance. "Love sucks, right?"

This seemed the wrong thing to say as a darkness fell across Clark's face almost instantly. Chloe seemed to recognise her mistake as she winched and placed a hand on Clark's shoulder and her attention turned towards his internal conflict, willingly shying away from her marital problems.

"How are you doing though? Now Lana's gone I mean?"

Lois continued typing, the clicking of her keys increasing in both tempo and volume.

A sigh escaped Clark and his shoulders slumped in total defeat, as though his heart were too heavy to be held within his chest. "I don't know. How am I meant to be feeling?" His eyes betrayed his sorrow as he looked at his friend in utter hopelessness. Chloe had no words that would help him and pursed her lips with a sympathetic gaze. Another sigh escaped his lips. Lois began opening and closing her desk drawers systematically, slamming them shut with as much force as she could muster. The sound, ultimately, not as rewarding as she hoped it would be, because she went back to her irritated typing seconds later, seething silently.

"I don't know Clark." Chloe seemed to struggle with the next part of her sentence. "I guess it just takes time."

"I don't think forever is enough time to get over someone like Lana Lang." Clark spoke with such conviction that it was as though it were an accepted fact. However, as Chloe was nodding her head sympathetically with a rub of his shoulder, Lois Lane abruptly stood up at her desk, hands clenched at her side, in danger of toppling over her chair with the speed at which she rose.

"My God, are you listening to yourselves?!" She demanded of her friend and cousin as they turned to face her stunned. Lois' complexion was like a warning bell but neither Chloe nor Clark paid attention and stared at her blankly. This only seemed to fuel the brunette's rage and she turned first to Chloe.

"I can't sit here and listen to another word of this drivel." She grabbed her coat and went to leave.

"Lois? What's wrong?" Her cousin's voice paused her in her actions of scrambling for her bag, keys and briefcase. She threw the items back down in a tantrum like fit and turned her steely gaze to the oblivious pair in front of her.

"Chloe, I love you, like a sister, but honestly? It's no wonder Jimmy's pissed with you!" Chloe's mouth dropped open unattractively. Lois stared at her incredulously but ultimately unfazed. "Do you seriously not know why he's angry?" At her cousin's silence, Lois's nostrils flared and she launched into what she had been bottling up for far longer than the 20 minutes the conversation had been playing out. "He was in the bloody hospital for the better part of two months and you visited once! Once, Chlo. I was there for his entire stay in Sterile Land. And better yet, he finds out you've been chumming it up with some guy that has stalkerish fantasies with you in the starring role! Are you telling me you wouldn't be pissed after that show of devotion?" Devotion was a sarcastic drawl as she rolled her eyes. "You've been married for two months, Chlo. How much of that time have you actually spent with your husband?" At Chloe's aghast, pale faced floundering Lois felt a rush of release. "I thought so. And you," here she turned, sparks practically flying from her eyes to the now slightly nervous Clark Kent, "well, I don't think I have words suitable enough. Like I said when I first met you two; 'train wreck'. Heartless though it may seem, Smallville, one day you will get over her, you will stop all this forlorn, teenage sighing and you will move on with your life." She leant forward slightly on her desk and, with a slight malicious twist to her voice that was contradicted only by the pity she seemed to hold for him she continued. "If you two were really destined to be together why do you think fate keeps throwing you these curve balls? Wake up and smell the rotting remains of last night's pizza, Clark." She returned to her less intimidating, standing pose and crossed her arms. "I am sick of your pining," here she turned back to look at Chloe who sat frozen, abashed, on the desk, "I am sick of your unwarranted self-pity and I wish you would both just grow up." She released a breath and a smile threatened to crack her hard-ass visage at finally having got the honest truth off her chest. "Now, I need to go work on a story and actually get on with my life. Maybe you two should do the same instead of sitting here bitching about how hard you have it?"

As she swept from the room, a shell-shocked silence left in her wake, broken only by one intern cracking the line 'Wow, PMS anyone?' which was met with a sharp glare from the now blushing Clark Kent. Personally? I think the entire newsroom wanted to applaud this gutsy Lois Lane who was able, and willing, to say what everyone else was thinking. But what do I know? I'm just the guy who delivers the coffee every week.

And I think I may just be in love with Miss Lois Lane.


End file.
